Latest Hurricane Headlines
All the headlines from our Hurricane Topic Page, ordered by recency.
James J. Donelon, Louisiana, Commissioner of Insurance
Sep 4 2006 // With his state still in recovery mode after last year’s Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon is arguably one of the busiest state insurance regulators in the U.S. While...
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita spawn legislation, bulletins in Miss. and La.
Sep 4 2006 // Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed many misconceptions and misunderstandings that consumers had, or claimed to have had, with respect to their insurance coverage for hurricane related damage. The aftermath of these two...
What the West Coast can learn from the Gulf Coast
Sep 4 2006 // One year after Hurricane Katrina, the insurance industry says that nearly 95 percent of homeowners insurance claims have been settled. Insurance companies have paid billions in storm damage claims, and the vast majority of...
Rates are softening
Sep 4 2006 // As the surplus lines world turns to another year of soft market conditions, specialists and innovators may be the ones to survive as increasing competition intensifies, according to excess and surplus lines brokers,...
Reinsurers ‘humbled, but most not broken’
Sep 4 2006 // In its recently issued global insurance report A.M. Best Co. concludes that “almost a year after three massive hurricanes — Katrina, Rita and Wilma — the global reinsurance industry is still struggling to...
First post-Katrina court decision a victory for insurers
Sep 4 2006 // On Aug. 15, 2006, a decision was handed down in the first post-Katrina insurance lawsuit to go to trial. Because there are thousands of lawsuits raising the same claims with millions, if not billions, of dollars at stake,...
Editor’s Note: Hurricane Katrina, a year later, another perspective
Sep 4 2006 // The Midwest is not affected by hurricanes or hurricane seasons because obviously our only coastal regions involve the Great Lakes, not oceans. The central region of this country does have its own natural disasters in the...
UPDATE 1: Hurricane John Strengthens; Baja California Threatened
Sep 1 2006 // After losing some strength along the West Coast of Mexico, Hurricane John has again become a “dangerous category three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale,” according to the latest bulletin (8:00 a.m. PDT)...
Katrina By the Numbers: $10.5 Billion in Claims Paid in Miss.
Aug 31 2006 // There have been 483,693 claims filed and more than $10.5 billion paid to Mississippians for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to the Mississippi Insurance Department. Those numbers were as of August 1, 2006 and...
Category 3 Hurricane John Threatens West Coast of Mexico
Aug 31 2006 // Although they infrequently touch land, the Pacific Ocean has hurricanes too, and John is a bad one. The storm is currently hugging the coast of Mexico. Its center was located near latitude 18.3 north/longitude 104.9 west...
Fla. Gubernatorial Hopefuls Focus on Rising Insurance Costs
Aug 31 2006 // Gerlinde Thomas doesn’t often get deeply involved in politics, and during a recent interview she wasn’t even 100 percent sure what party she’s in. “I think I’m a registered Democrat,”...
Plaintiffs Crowd La. Courthouse, Suing Insurers Just in Case
Aug 31 2006 // The line of people suing insurance companies – just in case something derails Louisiana’s one-year extension of the deadline for victims of last year’s hurricanes – spilled out of the clerk of...
La.’s Road Home Forced to Shut Down Online Applications
Aug 31 2006 // A Louisiana state agency doling out $7.5 billion in federal housing aid to hurricane victims shut down its online application system after it discovered personal information was inadvertently being shared with others. The...
UPDATE 4: Ernesto Gains Strength, Heads Toward the Carolinas
Aug 31 2006 // Ernesto may not be a hurricane, but it continues to be a very persistent tropical storm. After passing over Florida with a lot of rain and wind, but minimal damage, Ernesto has gained new strength with maximum sustained...
UPDATE 2: Weakened Ernesto Crosses Cuba; Florida on Watch
Aug 29 2006 // A significantly weaker Tropical Storm Ernesto crossed over the eastern Provinces of Cuba on Monday, bringing heavy rains. More than 500,000 people were evacuated from the region by authorities as a precaution, but so far...
Milwaukee Man Says He’d Still be Hooked on Drugs if Not for Hurricane
Aug 29 2006 // If Hurricane Katrina had not devastated New Orleans, James DeAngelis says he would still be there hooked on crack, cocaine, marijuana and alcohol _ his life for the past decade. After the hurricane, the 39-year-old ended...
A Year Later: La. Issues Updated Hurricane Katrina Insurance Figures
Aug 29 2006 // The Louisiana Department of Insurance has issued an updated statewide estimate of reported claims and insured losses paid-to-date (information as of July 31, 2006) for damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. This...
One Year Later: Reflections on White House Handling of Katrina
Aug 29 2006 // Hurricane Katrina lashed President Bush’s image as a take-charge commander in chief when it battered and deluged the Gulf Coast. Ever since, the president has sought to overcome the political damage done when he...
Texas Insurers Say They Learned Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
Aug 29 2006 // Texas insurers were thankful that Hurricane Katrina avoided the state’s coastal property, but the storm provided the industry valuable lessons in dealing with future catastrophes. Hurricane Katrina forced companies...
UPDATE 1: Hurricane Ernesto Menaces Haiti, Cuba; Florida in Storm’s Path
Aug 27 2006 // As of 11:00 am EDT, when the National Hurricane Center in Miami issued its latest bulletin, Tropical Storm Ernesto had become a Category 1 hurricane, the first of the current season. The hurricane’s center was...
